1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to agriculture and, in particular, to an agriculture management system. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to a method and apparatus for managing agricultural regions.
2. Background
Agriculture involves the cultivation of plants, animals, and other life forms in agricultural regions as resources. The products of agriculture regions may be used for food, fuel, medicines, and other purposes.
Production in agricultural regions are often managed to increase the production in those regions. The management of an agricultural region may be fairly complex. For example, irrigation, insect infestation management, soil erosion management, managing nutrient runoffs, weed control, bird control, crop selection, and other task are performed in managing the production in the agricultural region.
Having information about the agricultural region is important for identifying and implementing tasks for managing an agricultural region. Sensors may be placed on the land in the agricultural region to collect sensor data. For example, sensors may be present to detect moisture for purposes for irrigation.
Sensor systems on the land, however, may be impractical, depending on the size of the agricultural region. For example, if the agricultural region is about twenty thousand acres, installing sensors on the land in the agricultural region to detect moisture or growth of crops may cost more than desired, and maintenance of the sensor system may be more than desired.
As another example, satellite images may be used to obtain information about the agricultural region. The satellite images, however, may not provide information as frequently as desired when compared to sensors on the land. Also, the resolution of satellite images may not be as great as desired for analysis. For example, the images may not have a quality that allows for identifying features in the agricultural region needed for analysis.
Another system includes the use of aircraft. Manned and unmanned aircraft may fly over the agricultural region and generate images and other types of sensor data about the agricultural region. Using manned aircraft may be less convenient and more costly than desired. Flights need to be scheduled, and fuel is needed to fly from the airport to the agricultural region and back to the airport.
Unmanned aircraft in the form of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are being used more and more often. These types of aircraft are more convenient and less expensive than manned aircraft.
However, using unmanned aerial vehicles involves having human operators launch and retrieve the unmanned aerial vehicles after the unmanned aerial vehicles fly a mission over the agricultural region. These launch and retrieval operations are considered high workload operations that may require more personnel than desired. Also, time and effort that occur to retrieve and send the sensor data for analysis from the unmanned aerial vehicles may be more than desired.
The current systems may not generate sensor data for analysis about agricultural regions as quickly as desired to prevent or reduce damage. The time needed to obtain sensor data about an agricultural region may not identify an insect infestation until large amounts of damage has been done to the crop in the agricultural region.
For example, the potato beetle may cause significant damage to potato crops, tomato crops, and eggplant crops in a matter of a day or several days. Currently used systems for obtaining sensor data about agricultural regions may not provide information about such an infestation quickly enough to prevent or reduce damage to crops by the potato beetles.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have a method and apparatus that take into account at least some of the issues discussed above, as well as other possible issues. For example, it would be desirable to have a method and apparatus that overcome a technical problem with obtaining information about an agricultural region as efficiently as desired.